Screenshot from a video showing the collapse of a Gaza apartment building after it was targeted in an Israeli aistrike, August 23, 2014.

Israelis take cover as a siren wails in the southern costal city of Ashdod on August 22, 2014 (Photo credit: David Buimovitch/AFP)

People pray for Palestinian victims, especially some 480 children, killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza after placing shoes in front of a temporary altar at Jozoji temple in Tokyo on August 23, 2014. More than 100 people gathered to pray for peace between Palestine and Israel (Photo credit: Toru Yamanaka/AFP)

Daniel Tragerman (photo credit: Courtesy)

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone pose on the red carpet for the premiere of their movie "The Expendables 3" in Macau, China, Friday, Aug. 22, 2014. The two are among 187 signatories on a new letter slamming Hamas. (photo credit: AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Palestinian demonstrators throw stones at Palestinian Authority security forces blocking the road to an Israeli checkpoint in the center of the West Bank town of Hebron on August 22, 2014, following a demonstration to show support for Hamas. (Photo credit: AFP/ Hazem Bader)

Police and emergency services at the site of the Ashdod synagogue hit by a Gaza rocket, August 22, 2014. (Photo credit: Israel Police)

Anti-Jewish graffiti is seen on a wall of a Jewish school on August 22, 2014 in Copenhagen. The text on the wall says: 'Peace in Gaza and no peace to you Zionist pigs'. (Photo credit: AFP / Scanpix DENMARK / Erik Refner)

A photo from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border shows a smoke trail of rockets being fired by Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip into Israel, August 22, 2014. (photo credit: AFP/Jack Guez)

A Hamas gunmen holding an alleged "collaborator" in Gaza, moments before the suspect is shot to death, on August 22 (Photo credit: YouTube screenshot)

Writers

Yifa Yaakov
Yifa Yaakov is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

The Times of Israel liveblogged events as they unfolded through Saturday, August 23, the 47th day of Operation Protective Edge. Egypt has called on the sides to agree to an open-ended truce in Gaza. Hamas pounded southern Israel with some 200 rockets and mortar shells Friday and Saturday, killing a four-year-old boy, Daniel Tragerman — the first Israeli fatality since Hamas breached a truce on Tuesday and reignited fighting. Hamas also executed 22 alleged collaborators with Israel in 48 hours, after Israel killed several of its terror chiefs in air strikes Tuesday and Wednesday. (Sunday’s liveblog is here.)

Day 47 of Operation Protective Edge

PREAMBLE: A mortar shell fired from Gaza on Friday afternoon killed Daniel Tragerman, 4, inside his home at a kibbutz near the Gaza border. The shell exploded outside, and shrapnel smashed into home, killing the boy before his parents could get him into their protected room.

Daniel Tragerman (photo credit: Courtesy)

In response, Israel stepped up air strikes on targets in Gaza. The IDF spokesman warned Gazans living in buildings housing rocket launchers, ammunition and other elements of the Hamas war machine to evacuate.

Earlier Friday, Hamas executed 18 alleged collaborators with Israel, days after Israeli air strikes killed three of its top terror chiefs and leveled a building in which a fourth, Muhammad Deif, was said to be hiding out.

Daniel Tragerman, 4, killed inside his own home

Here’s more of Times of Israel’s earlier piece on the killing of Daniel Tragerman:

A four-year-old Israeli boy was killed by a mortar shell fired from the Gaza Strip on Friday afternoon. The boy, named late Friday as Daniel Tragerman, was at home with his parents and siblings at their kibbutz in the Sha’ar Hanegev Region, close to the border with Gaza, when the attack took place.

An Israeli army spokesperson said the fatal shell was fired from near an UNRWA shelter in Gaza. Earlier, Israeli officials had said it was fired from an UNRWA school — an asserted the IDF later corrected.

Sirens wailed only very shortly before the mortar shell struck outside the Tragerman family home at the kibbutz, and his parents — Doron and Gila — were unable to get their son Daniel into their protected room in time. He was killed by shrapnel from the explosion that smashed into the house.

Daniel Tragerman (photo credit: Courtesy)

Daniel is the first Israeli child to die in the current Israel-Hamas conflict. His death brought the Israeli death toll since Operation Protective Edge began on July 8 to 68.

He was critically wounded, and later died of his wounds.

Several cars and buildings sustained damage from the fire following the explosion of the mortar shell.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas would pay a “heavy price” for the killing. In a phone call to local Sha’ar Hanegev council head Alon Shuster, Netanyahu said the IDF and Shin Bet would intensify their operations against Hamas and other Gaza terror groups until sustained calm was guaranteed for Israel.

Shuster said the family had only recently returned to their home, having stayed elsewhere during part of the war.

US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro condemned the attack. “I condemn in the strongest terms this outrageous terrorist attack and offer condolences to the boy’s family. Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself, which the United States supports,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

Tragerman was the first Israeli fatality since Hamas breached a truce on Tuesday and resumed rocket fire at Israel, prompting a re-escalation of fighting and the collapse of ceasefire talks in Cairo.

Israel must force Hamas ‘to raise the white flag,’ Liberman says

Israel’s objective in its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip must be to defeat the Islamist terror organization and render the group incapable of orchestrating any further attacks against the Jewish state, Avigdor Liberman said in a Friday night TV interview.

“Our strategic goal as a state must be either to defeat or force the surrender of Hamas,” the foreign minister said during an interview with Channel 2. “Surrender means that Hamas raises the white flag and begs for a ceasefire without any preconditions and requirements,” he elaborated.

“Defeat means that Hamas has no ability to fire missiles, produce rockets or restore tunnels.” He said this goal was entirely “realistic.”

Liberman went on to heavily condemn Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who, the foreign minister asserted, has led an incitement campaign against Israel throughout the IDF operation in the Gaza Strip.

“Abbas failed in Gaza and lost it to Hamas, he did not deliver the goods then and is incapable of doing so today,” Liberman charged. “While Hamas focused on terrorist actions, Abbas led a militant and inciting line against Israel.”

While insisting that he did not wish to attack Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Liberman criticized Netanyahu for what he called his indecisiveness with regard to Abbas and for entrusting the Palestinian leader with assisting in ending the conflict with Hamas.

“When Abbas formed a government with Hamas, Netanyahu insisted on not recognizing it, and now suddenly Abbas is a lifesaver?” Liberman asked. “It just doesn’t fit.”

Abbas, Mashaal urge UN timetable to ‘end Israeli occupation’

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas’s political leader Khaled Mashaal are urging the United Nations to draw up a “timetable” for the end of the “Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories,” Qatar state media says.

Abbas and Mashaal issued the appeal during talks in Doha, as fighting continued in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The two Palestinian leaders held talks in Doha Thursday and Friday, but little else filtered out of their meetings which were hosted by the emir of Qatar, a key backer of Hamas.

Rocket explodes outside Eshkol community

War of attrition will go on, says Hamas chief

Hamas will continue to wage a “war of attrition” against Israel, Hamas’s representative in Cairo, Moussa Abu Marzouk, says this evening.

Ynet quotes the senior Hamas official as saying the organization prefers to negotiate under fire, and will not agree to another truce.

“Israel only understands the language of force. We will persist in the war of attrition until our demands are met,” he reportedly says, adding that Hamas is continuing to manufacture rockets to fire at Israel.

He also says the Palestinian factions in Cairo have signed a document calling on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to bring Israel before the International Criminal Court.

‘Hamas running out of rockets’

Hamas is running out of rockets to launch at Israel, Channel 10 reports, citing sources in the Israeli defense establishment.

According to the sources, the organization has only a few dozen medium- and long-range rockets left, and the number of rockets it has launched at Israeli targets farther from the Gaza Strip has decreased noticeably.

A picture taken on August 22, 2014 from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza Border shows smoke trail of rockets being fired by Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip into Israel. (photo credit: AFP/JACK GUEZ)

Shelter from which rocket fired run by Hamas, not UNRWA

The shelter from which a rocket was fired at Israel, killing a 4-year-old child, was maintained by Hamas, not UNRWA, IDF spokesman Peter Lerner says.

Lerner tweets that contrary to previous reports, which said the rocket was fired from or near an UNRWA school being used as a shelter, the facility in question was run by Hamas, not the UN.

This is the second correction the IDF has issued today pertaining to the fatal attack. Earlier, it corrected a report saying the rocket was fired from within the shelter, saying it was actually launched from a spot near it.

1/2 Correction: After further review, the school the mortar was launched near from is not being used as a shelter by @UNRWA

UNRWA ‘categorically denies’ rocket claim

Moments before the IDF retracts its claim that the mortar that killed 4-year-old Daniel Tragerman in southern Israel was fired from an UNRWA school used as a shelter, the agency denies that the weapon was fired from one of its facilities.

Chris Gunness, the UNRWA spokesman in Gaza, shortly before breaking into tears during a television interview, July 30, 2014. (photo credit: screen capture YouTube/Kaya Bouma)

The agency “categorically denies that the weapon that killed the Israeli child today was fired from an UNRWA installation,” tweets its spokesman, Chris Gunness.

Gunness later tweets that the Israeli military has retracted the claim.

UNRWA categorically denies that the weapon that killed the Israeli child today was fired from an UNRWA installation RT

Hamas official pans Islamic State comparison

A senior Hamas official rips into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for comparing the Gazan Islamist organization to the Syrian-based Islamic State al-Qaeda breakaway group.

In a rare post in English on his Facebook page, Izzat al-Risheq says “the attempt by Netanyahu and his spokesman Ofir Gendelman to link Hamas and compare us with other groups is a deception and disinformation campaign that will not fool anyone.”

American journalist James Foley, kneeling in orange, in a video released by the Islamic State, which apparently showed him being beheaded by his captor, August 19, 2014. (screen capture: YouTube/News of the World)

Al-Risheq blasts Netanyahu for exploiting “without any respect for the sanctity of the dead” the photo of American journalist James Foley’s beheading at the hands of Islamic State terrorists. “We strongly condemn and reject how Netanyahu, Gendelman and the Israeli media exploit the picture of the slain American journalist James Foley who was executed in a brutal manner,” he says.

He goes on to note that Hamas, unlike the Islamic State, is a “national liberation movement” confronting “Israel[i] terrorism against our children and the innocent civilians of the Palestinian people.”

He says the group’s “main objective” is not a caliphate, but rather “to end the Israeli occupation and terrorism in our land.”

Mashaal admits Hamas members killed 3 teens

Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal admits that Hamas members killed three Israeli teens in the West Bank in June, though he says the leadership of the organization was not made aware of the details of the abduction plan in advance.

In an interview with Michael Isikoff for Yahoo News in Doha, the Qatari capital, Mashaal says that the leadership of Hamas learned of the details of the killings of the three students, Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-ad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach, from the Israeli investigation into them.

“We were not aware of this action taken by this group of Hamas members in advance,” he says. “But we understand people are frustrated under the occupation and the oppression, and they take all kinds of action.”

In the same breath, he stresses that Hamas differs from Syria and Iraq’s Islamic State — which he calls a “religious, violent group” that is a “totally different phenomenon” — in that it does not target civilians, aiming its rockets “most of the time” at military targets and IDF bases.

“This is an opportunity for me to say we are against the killing of any civilians, any journalists,” he tells Isikoff. Claiming that it is Israel who is killing civilians and journalists, Mashaal vows that Hamas will, in the future, take measures to warn Israeli civilians of impending attacks, just as Israel does in the Gaza Strip — but admits that Hamas has a “problem” directing its strikes at military targets only.

“We do not have sophisticated weapons. We do not have the weapons available to our enemy … so aiming is difficult … We promise that if we get more precise weapons, we will only target military targets,” he says.

Daniel Tragerman’s mother: We were about to leave the kibbutz

The mother of 4-year-old Daniel Tragerman, who was killed by a Gaza mortar shell on Friday, says the family was preparing to leave their home for safer areas when the attack came.

Gila Tragerman says a shell had exploded in their kibbutz some time earlier, convincing the family to leave for her parents’ house in Kiryat Ono, near Tel Aviv.

“The suitcases were already packed,” she tells Ynet. “The children were playing in a tent inside the house, and from the moment of the siren to the explosion only three seconds passed. We didn’t have time to get the children and go into the protected room.”

Sirens heard in the Ashkelon area

Israeli strike kills family of five, Palestinians say

An Israeli air strike hit a house in central Gaza before dawn on Saturday killing five family members, including two women and two children, Palestinian medics say.

Emergency services initially said three people were killed and five wounded, but later announced that two people had died of their injuries after the attack in al-Zawayda near the Nusseirat refugee camp.

The air raid hit a family home, witnesses and medics say. Doctors at the al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah say the five dead all came from the same family — a 28-year-old father, his 26-year-old wife and their two boys aged three and four. The father’s 45-year-old aunt was also killed, they say.

Man critically injured on Friday is IDF soldier who fought in Gaza

The man critically injured by a rocket in Ashdod Friday night is a 21-year-old IDF soldier who was on vacation after returning from operation in the Gaza Strip, Ynet reports. His brother, 19 and also a soldier, was lightly injured.

“They were just on vacation and went out to enjoy themselves,” the young men’s father says. “We’re hoping for the best. Prayer is needed.”

Sirens heard in Ashdod, Ashkelon and Gan Yavne

Rocket intercepted over Ashkelon

Aharonovich: Gaza periphery residents should leave for a break

Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich is visiting the Gaza periphery today, and suggests that residents of the Gaza periphery leave the area for a time in order to take a break from the constant rocket barrages.

Israel cannot accept a war of attrition with Hamas, he says. “We need to strike and there is much work yet,” he says, according to Ynet. “The IDF has dealt a blow to Hamas but we need patience.”

Gaza officials say 8 killed, 10 injured in IDF strikes today

PA official: Hamas acting like Islamic State group

The Palestinian Authority is denouncing Hamas for its recent executions in Gaza of 18 suspected collaborators with Israel, with Tayeb Abdel Rahim, the PA president’s secretary-general, calling the killings cold-blooded murder, Israel Radio reports.

According to the report, the official adds that Hamas’s actions were reminiscent of the actions of extreme Islamic groups such as the Islamic State, which has taken over parts of Iraq and Syria.

Daniel’s funeral will be held tomorrow at 9 a.m. at the Pitchat Shalom cemetery in the northern Negev.

Daniel Tragerman was killed by a mortar shell fired from Gaza into a kibbutz in the Sha’ar Hanegev regional council on August 22, 2014. (Photo credit: Courtesy)

By this afternoon, no families with children remained in the kibbutz, according to the community’s spokeswoman.

Of the nearly 360 ​​members of Nahal Oz, only about 90 people, almost all of them kibbutz employees, remained, Ynet reported.

In nearby Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha (some 25 km south of Nahal Oz), families with young children and the elderly have all left as well.

Amid the incessant rocket and mortar fire since indirect truce talks between Israel, Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups broke down on Tuesday, residents in southern Israel say they can no longer stay living in their communities.

Many southern residents had come back following a temporary truce that lasted six days, and at the urging of the military and the government two weeks ago.

The residents of Nahal Oz have criticized the government for what they say is its inaction, a month and a half after the operation began.

“We are disappointed that the reality on the ground has not changed,” the residents said in a statement.

Damage seen in a home hit by a mortar shell in the Eshkol region on August 21, 2014. (Photo credit: Flash90)

“The [government] instruction to return to our homes does not correspond with the reality since the rockets and mortars are still being fired. We live with a great degree of uncertainty,” writes Kibbutz spokeswoman Yenina Barnea.

Another kibbutz resident had some harsher words for the authorities, accusing them of “leading us like a herd, they said everything was ok.”

Netanyahu to UN chief: Hamas is Islamic State, Islamic State is Hamas

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon about the ongoing operation in Gaza, telling him that Hamas is committing war crimes and using civilians as human shields.

“The world saw yesterday [when Hamas killed 18 suspected “collaborators” with Israel] that Hamas, like the Islamic State, carries out mass public executions. In addition, Hamas, like the Islamic State, it persecutes and oppresses minorities.”

“The ideology of these two groups calls for Islamic caliphates and both use the same murderous methods — Hamas is the Islamic State, the Islamic State is Hamas,” he says.

Netanyahu came under fire earlier this week when his office posted a controversial tweet that used an image from the graphic beheading video of US journalist James Foley released by the Islamic State terrorist group.

The deleted Israeli tweet, which has been posted on BuzzFeed, juxtaposed an image, labeled “ISIS,” of Foley with his black-clad executioner with blade in hand alongside a picture, labeled “Hamas,” of a body being dragged through a street behind a motorcycle. The tweet was labeled “Hamas is ISIS. ISIS is Hamas,” repeating a statement made on Wednesday by Netanyahu.

A few hours later, the tweet was deleted after the Prime Minister’s office received criticism for using the image.

Last night, the office released a similar tweet, this time juxtaposing images of ISIS and Hamas performing public executions.

Sirens sound in communities in Sdot Negev, Sha’ar Hanegev

Sirens sound in communities near Gaza for 3rd time in 15 minutes

Sirens sound in Eshkol Regional Council

Hamas: Return to talks depends on Israeli readiness to meet demands

Hamas says it supports Egypt’s efforts to resume indirect ceasefire negotiations in Cairo, but its return to the table is contingent on Israel’s readiness to accept its demands.

“Any return to the negotiations will depends on if the’resistance’ feels that Israel is willing to meet our demands, without evasiveness and foot-dragging,” Hamas said in a statement cited by Ynet.

“We will not agree to negotiate just for the sake of negotiation,” read the statement.

Hamas has demanded a full lifting of the Gaza blockade imposed by Egypt and Israel in 2007 after the terror group violently seized control of the Palestinian enclave. The blockade was imposed in large part to prevent Hamas importing weaponry.

Sirens sound in communities near Gaza

Opposition leader calls for elections after operation ends

Opposition leader and head of the Labor Party Yitzhak Herzog says Israel must go to general elections after Operation Protective Edge ends.

“The Israeli people will face a tough decision [after this conflict]: does it see a future for the two-state solution, or not, which is why I think that after this military campaign, we must go to elections,” he says.

Israel Labor party Leader Isaac Herzog speaks during a Labor party meeting in the Israeli parliament on July 28, 2014. (photo credit: Flash90)

“The people will have their say because this government has failed on almost every front. Economically, we’re on the verge of an economic catastrophe, not to mention the dead end on the diplomatic front regarding the peace process, which in its way, has led us to where we are now,” he says during an interview with Channel 2.

Herzog says Netanyahu failed to shore up the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas, “who belongs to the moderate axis in the region,” and has instead strengthened Hamas, by calling off US-brokered negotiations in April.

“I’m not here to defend Abbas. Abbas is a rival, but he’s a rival who recognizes the state of Israel and says ‘I will not use terror,” Herzog stresses.

“We must give hope to the Israeli people. We can’t live like this forever.”

“We have to decide, We can’t hold on to the West Bank as whole. We can’t keep [millions of] Palestinians in a pressure cooker. Those who want the West Bank to be, God forbid, like Gaza, should continue on this path. Those who don’t must pursue a brave [peace] process,” he goes on.

Herzog says Netanyahu should have immediately resumed talks with Abbas while operating against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Borrowing from the late Yitzhak Rabin’s famous saying “we have to fight terror as if there were no peace talks, and we have to pursue peace as if there were no terror,” Herzog says of the situation “we must hit Hamas as if there are no peace talks with Abbas, and pursue peace talks with Abbas as if we are not hitting Hamas.”

Rocket explodes in open terrain in Be’er Tuvia causing a fire

82 projectiles fired into Israel since midnight, says IDF

We will help southerners move north — defense minister

As more and more families in southern communities and in towns near the Gaza Strip border choose to depart from the area for fear of rocket attacks, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon says the IDF will provide assistance to fleeing civilians in order to ease their move up north.

Speaking during a visit to towns in the south, Ya’alon says that although authorities did not specifically recommend that residents in the vicinity of the Palestinian enclave evacuate their homes, a decision to leave the area would be met with support and understanding on the government’s part.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon gives a statement to the press about the abduction of three Jewish teenagers near Hebron, in the West Bank, Saturday, June 14, 2014 (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Ya’alon adds that the ongoing IDF operation in the Gaza Strip was at this point aimed at forcing Hamas to accept a ceasefire on Israel’s terms.

“The goal of the [Israeli] decision makers is to bring Hamas to the negotiation table in Cairo under terms that Israel decides, and to achieve a ceasefire deal as demanded by Jerusalem,” he says.

Sirens blare in Gaza border communities

Two rockets intercepted near Hof Ashkelon

The army reveals that Chief of the General Staff Benny Gantz was visiting Kibbutz Nahal Oz yesterday afternoon when mortar fire from Gaza hit the kibbutz and killed four-year-old Daniel Tragerman there.

East Jerusalem resident in serious condition after shooting at Jewish homes

A 20-year-old resident of the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem, who is suspected of shooting at homes in Pisgat Ze’ev — also in east Jerusalem — yesterday, was shot and seriously wounded today by Border Police guards.

The man was evacuated by a Red Crescent ambulance to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital, having been hit as he was allegedly firing more shots.

Police say they are looking for other suspects involved in the shooting at Pisgat Ze’ev residences.

Sirens in Ashkelon, Gaza border communities

Defense minister visit to Nahal Oz nixed; residents furious

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon visited several southern communities today and was set to make an appearance at Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where four-year-old Daniel Tragerman was killed yesterday by a mortar shell, but the visit was nixed because of the heavy rocket fire, prompting the ire of the residents.

Nahal Oz residents interviewed by Channel 10 expressed their frustration with the cancelation, asking why the government and the military told them it was safe to return to their homes earlier this month when it was too dangerous even for the defense minister.

Channel 10 reports that Ya’alon’s security detail forbade the visit following the barrages fired from Gaza into the communities bordering the Palestinian enclave all afternoon.

The Nahal Oz kibbutz dining hall was also hit by mortar fire this morning, Army Radio reports.

Of the nearly 360 ​​members of Nahal Oz, only about 90 people, almost all of them kibbutz employees, remained, while the rest took refuge further north.

Over 600 Gaza rockets fired from civilian areas since op began — IDF

The IDF says that over 600 rockets fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip since Operation Protective Edge began on July 8, were launched from civilian areas.

The military says 260 of them were fired from schools or other educational institutions, 130 from cemeteries, 160 from religious institutions and 50 were fired from hospitals in the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave.

Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups have launched over 3,500 rockets at Israeli cities over the past month and a half.

Israeli airstrike hits Gaza City apartment tower

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Palestinian police say Israeli warplanes have fired two missiles at an apartment tower in central Gaza City, sending a huge ball of fire and a black cloud of smoke into the air.

The force of the blast shook neighboring buildings.

Ashraf al-Kidra, a Gaza health official in the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave, says at least 10 people, including four children, were wounded in the strike.

Police say a warning missile hit the roof of the 12-story building about five minutes before the airstrike. The building has 48 apartments.

The reported 187 signatories, who include Mayim Bialik, Minnie Driver, Kelsey Grammer, Seth Rogen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sarah Silverman, and Sylvester Stallone, condemn the “ideologies of hatred and genocide which are reflected in Hamas’ charter, Article 7 of which reads, ‘There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!’”

In their letter, set to be published on Sunday in Billboard, Variety and Hollywood Reporter, and also in leading US newspapers, they write that “Hamas cannot be allowed to rain rockets on Israeli cities, nor can it be allowed to hold its own people hostage. Hospitals are for healing, not for hiding weapons. Schools are for learning, not for launching missiles. Children are our hope, not our human shields.”

Sirens sound in Gaza border communities

Southern residents demonstrate in front of PM residence

Dozens of southern residents have been protesting in front of the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, urging the government to come up with an immediate, long-term plan to thwart rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.

Over the weekend, several demonstrators camped out in a tent outside the residence, though the protests largely quelled down by this evening.

“We demand that the prime minister explain to us how he plans to solve the security problem we have been suffering from over the past 14 years,” a resident of the Eshkol Region who took part in the Friday protests tells Walla.

“We hope that, contrary to what we see now, he does have a strategy and a vision.”

Residents from communities in the Gaza border seen at the protest tent near the prime minister’s house in Jerusalem on August 22, 2014, demanding peace and quiet for communities on the Gaza border. (Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Residents from communities in the Gaza border seen at the protest tent near the prime minister’s house in Jerusalem on August 22, 2014. (Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Executed ‘collaborators’ sat in Hamas prison for years

Israeli security sources tell Walla news that Hamas’s claim that the 18 “collaborators” it executed publicly gave information to Israel during Operation Protective Edge is false.

The men, the site reports, were imprisoned by the Islamist group before the outbreak of violence earlier this summer. Some were detained by Hamas for more than two years, and Hamas executed them after pulling them out of prison, the officials say.